Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) is an information system used by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Since most physicians in the United States have a rotation and/or otherwise practiced medicine at the VA, most of the physicians in the United States are familiar with and/or otherwise know how to use VistA. VistA has a computerized patient record system (CRPS) that provides an archaic Windows-style user interface similar to that found in Windows operating systems from the early 1990s. Further, the user interface often takes as many 8-12 steps (e.g., 8-12 separate user selections in various menus and submenus) for the physician to access and view a particular piece of information. Thus, VistA requires the physician to search through menus upon menus of the user interface for the physician to find information, which needlessly wastes the physician's time. Physicians who are not well versed in the user interface may experience a vast amount of frustration when they are unable to find needed information or only able to find the needed information after wasting the physician's precious time. Such frustrations and lack of efficiency have led many physicians (including physicians who are well versed in VistA) to refrain and/or otherwise abandon use of the system whenever possible thereby weakening the data integrity of the system.
Additionally, the medical field is having a hard time ensuring industry standards are followed as the VistA system has no ability to track that a procedure was followed in a particular order in response to detecting a particular patient symptom. Further, the medical industry does not have unified procedures for hospitals to enforce industry standards. When a physician does not follow industry standards, preventable, irreversible and potentially deadly mistakes in patient care occur.
Further, while a patient in a hospital room may be monitored by various different monitoring devices (e.g., heart rate monitor, breathing monitor, etc.). Such monitors do not predict a potential future medical condition of the patient. As a result, many medication conditions are only diagnosed after they occur.
Accordingly, there is a persistent need to create a user-friendly system for physicians to access and manipulate medical records, as well as helps ensure industry standards are followed and aid in prediction and prevention of future medical conditions of the patient.